Sighting in for deer hunting season

When it comes to sighting in my rifle for hunting season, I’ve always been a 100-yard guy.

Not sure where that came from, how I started at 100 yards, but when I got into hunting as part of a mid-life career change from sportswriter to outdoor writer, that was the distance I picked for sighting in my rifles.

Deer season for rifle hunters in San Diego County (D-16) is approaching quickly. It opens Oct. 23. Do you know how your gun is shooting after sitting for a year? Probably not.

The reason I mentioned the 100-yard distance at the start of this is that I just picked up a tip from a new book, “The Pocket Deer Hunting Guide,” written by longtime outdoor writer Stephen D. Carpenteri and published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., out of New York, New York.

Carpenteri has one axiom that most know, but too many don’t follow: “ALWAYS sight in your firearms before your hunt begins.”

Carpenteri is a big believer in sighting in from 25 yards. His reasoning is this:

“When sighted in at 25 yards, any modern centerfire rifle in the .24- .30-caliber range will be: Dead on at 25 yards. Three inches high at 100 yards. Dead on again at approximately 250 yards.

Carpenteri adds that “calibers, loads and conditions will vary so your rifle may be off an inch or two beyond 25 yards, but a rifle so sighted will allow you to confidently shoot at deer out to 250 yards and expect to make a killing shot. All things being equal, your rifle will kill 99 percent of the deer you see in North America if you sight it in to be dead on at 25 yards.”

Carpenteri also provides another great sighting-in tip. After settling in to sight-in your rifle, making sure it has a solid rest, “fire three carefully aimed shots at the center of the bulls-eye. Aim and shoot the same way each time no matter where the bullets are going. You are not trying to hit the bulls-eye this time; you’re just looking for a nice, tight grouping of shots.

After seeing where the three shots hit, adjust your scope accordingly. Let the barrel cool as much as possible because “your first shots at a deer will be most likely to exit from a cold barrel.”

Carpenteri says to continue the same sighting in process – three shots – no matter where they’re hitting. But after the adjustment, they should be close or in the bulls-eye.

This is old school sighting in that I remember hearing about from my relatives in Pennsylvania long before I took up hunting in California.

What I’ve learned is that there is a difference between the length of shots we take here in the West and what guys get in the East. There’s also a bit of a gap in the amount of time hunters get to shoot a white-tailed deer and the time one gets to shoot at a mule deeer. Carpenteri says the average time a hunter gets on a whitetail is about 20 seconds. I’ve sat and watched mule deer in my scope for a lot longer than that.

The woods are thicker in most parts back East. There is a lot more hunting pressure, especially on opening day.

Last year, after shooting a forked horn buck in San Diego County off hand from about 75 yards, I went back to Pennsylvania to hunt the opening day of rifle season for deer. I sat in the exact same spot where my nephew shot a fine 8-pointer on the opening day of archery a couple months before rifle season.

After sitting all day, with occasional walks along a hillside ridge and creek below, I was nestled against the stump of a fallen tree around 3:30 p.m. when I heard the unmistakable sound of running hooves. Suddenly up on the ridge, I saw a deer, a doe, I thought. And since I only had a buck tag, I didn’t raise my gun, but instead lifted my binoculars for a better look. It wasn’t a doe, but a massive buck that already was fixed on me and staring. By the time I picked up my gun, that buck, which had survived a gauntlet of hunters and shooters to get to me, was showing off its majestic white tail and bounding off.

I didn’t take the shot at the deer running away. These days I’m a lot more particular about when I pull the trigger. I’m missing a lot less, too.